Court OKs Armenians’ Citizenship

The U.S. citizenship of two men convicted 20 years ago in an Armenian plot to bomb the offices of the Turkish Consulate in Philadelphia was affirmed Tuesday as the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the men had demonstrated their good character since 1992.

“To hold otherwise would sanction a denial of citizenship where the applicant’s misconduct ... was many years in the past, and where a former bad record has been followed by many years of exemplary conduct, with every evidence of reformation and good moral character,” the court said Tuesday, citing its similar ruling in an earlier case.

Viken Hovsepian, now 45, and Viken Vasken Yacoubian, now 42, both born in Lebanon, were among five Los Angeles-area men arrested in October 1982 on suspicion of conspiring to dynamite the consul general’s office. The FBI said it found the makings of a bomb in a suitcase at Boston’s Logan Airport, where one of the five was arrested.

Hovsepian, then the part owner of a gas station and a Santa Monica resident, was identified by prosecutors as the organizer of the scheme and “the most culpable of these five defendants.” Yacoubian, of Glendale, was a student at UCLA.

In October 1984, Hovsepian; Yacoubian; Karnig Sarkissian, then 31, of Anaheim; and Steven Dadaian, then 22, of Canoga Park were found guilty by a federal judge of transporting explosives across a state line.

But U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer said she was impressed with the backgrounds of the defendants and indicated she would give serious consideration to their pasts in determining their sentences. Pfaelzer did not say what impressed her, but defense attorneys said they thought she was referring to familial and sociological factors in their roles as Armenian activists.

Pfaelzer’s verdict followed a five-day trial in which the defendants presented an insanity defense based on the history of hostility between Turks and Armenians.

“The main defense was that they should not be found criminally responsible because of the psychological impact of the Armenian genocide in 1915, in which 1 1/2 million Armenians were killed by the Turks,” said Michael Avery, Dadaian’s attorney.

On Jan. 25, 1985, Pfaelzer sentenced Hovsepian to six years in a federal prison camp. Yacoubian was sentenced to three years.

“I have no doubt the defendants are basically of good character and unlikely to repeat the acts,” Pfaelzer said. “Nonetheless, [the bombing] was methodically planned. It was not amateurish. I must incarcerate the defendants.”

The fifth defendant, Dikran Berberian of Glendale, was tried separately. He was convicted in 1986 at age 32 of conspiracy and transporting an explosive device. He served a 5 1/2 -year sentence at the Terminal Island federal penitentiary.

After completing their sentences, Hovsepian and Yacoubian returned to the Los Angeles area.

Hovsepian became “a role model amongst youth groups and student groups, to which he frequently lectures about the counter-productiveness of violence,” the appellate court said. “Yacoubian became the principal of the Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in 1993 ... and has become a leader in the Armenian American community.”

Both men applied for, and eventually were granted, U.S. citizenship. But federal attorneys appealed, arguing that the men had made false statements in their efforts to secure citizenship.

The appellate court disagreed.

“No intentionally false testimony was given,” Judge Susan P. Graber wrote in the court’s opinion. “To the extent that any statements in the application process were inaccurate, the inaccuracies resulted from faulty memory, misinterpretation of a question or innocent mistake.”